WHU Dedicates Lecture Hall to Jürgen Weber

Professor Jürgen Weber made every one of his thirty-four-year tenure at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management count for something. From 1986 to 2019, he spent his time researching and teaching, consistently publishing new works, and shaping the field of management accounting nationwide and beyond. He served the school in a variety of roles, including, for a time, as Dean and Deputy Dean. When he held his final lecture on costings and performance analysis on October 10, 2019, it was clear to everyone in the room that an era was coming to an end.

In close collaboration with the school, the Institute for Management Accounting and Control (IMC) had planned something special in store for its founder and longstanding director. On November 17, 2023, at a surprise ceremony, lecture hall H-001 on the school’s Vallendar campus was renamed the Jürgen Weber Auditorium in his honor. “We wish to extend our deepest gratitude and respect for Professor Weber after all that he has done for the school and for this community. In renaming the auditorium, we want future members of the WHU Community to recognize his contributions as a great educator and researcher,” said Professor Christian Andres, Dean of WHU, during his welcome speech.

Jürgen Weber himself was surprised, moved, and particularly pleased about the more than 170 guests, many of them high-ranking, who had come to Vallendar in his honor. Among them were Henkel CEO Carsten Knobel, E.ON CFO Marc Spieker, and the former head of the Federal Employment Agency Frank-Jürgen Weise. “Much of my career has been shaped by WHU as an institution,” Weber said modestly. “Because many things are possible here that are often not possible at state universities.” In addition to graduates from WHU’s very first class, many of his more than 160 former doctoral and post-doctoral students were also present to honor and celebrate their former supervisor.

During his time at WHU, Professor Weber founded and directed several centers at WHU, as well as the IMC, which he co-led with Professor Utz Schäffer and later also with Professor Marko Reimer. With his professional focus having been on the areas of controlling and corporate management and logistics, he has remained closely associated with the IMC even after his retirement. “There is nothing more practical than a good theory”—words from German-American psychologist Kurt Lewin that define Professor Weber’s dedication to combining thought with action. This could be seen in the way he deliberately adopted different theoretical perspectives and used a variety of research methods over time.

As one of WHU’s most productive faculty members, Professor Weber has contributed to more than 1,300 publications and supervised more than 150 dissertations and 11 post-doctoral theses. He is also known to generations of business economists and students as co-author of the textbook and workbook Einführung in das Controlling (published in English as Introduction to Controlling), currently in its 17^th edition. The work received the 2021 Textbook Prize from the German Academic Association for Business Research (VHB). With his dedication and unwavering intellectual curiosity, Professor Weber has not only shaped WHU and helped build its excellent reputation since its early years; he has also advanced the general understanding of management accounting and logistics, both in German-speaking countries and beyond.

Since retiring with emeritus status, Professor Weber has pivoted away from academics to explore other passions, including photography. “Science and photography have a lot more in common than people may realize at first glance,” he noted. “Both disciplines require you to get to the heart of the matter.”